


Once and Future

by MrProphet



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 15:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10699749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	Once and Future

Professor Davies stood admiring the fully-excavated doorway of the mound with pride. After so many years of ridicule, this was a crowning moment for him; the vindication of all his theories and his redemption in the eyes of academia. He ran his hands over the stonework while I wrestled with the translation of the inscriptions on the trilithon.

We were ten miles from Glastonbury Tor, excavating the fifth small mound that the Professor had identified as the tomb, when we found the trilithon. It stood a full fifteen feet from the door itself, but perfectly aligned, like a ceremonial arch on a processional way. The left upright was carved with a text I did not know; the right upright with conventional Ogham script. The doorway proved to be inscribed with the same, strange characters, but if I was right, the arch was a kind of Rosetta Stone and I should be able to decipher the text on the door.

"The Tomb of King Arthur," the Professor sighed contentedly. "You see, my boy. It is real." He touched the inscription. "Arthur, Once and Future King."

I frowned. "I'm not sure I got that bit right," I admitted. "It's... The name is odd, but the second bit is..." I turned back to translation, looking up briefly as the Professor fetched a crowbar.

"Have some faith, lad," he chuckled, feeling for a gap around the frame. I went back to my translations, trying different combinations of transliteration and lexicon to find the right phrasing. 'Once and future' wasn't right; the concepts just didn't seem to fit the language I was working from. Finding little joy by association with the Ogham, I tried imagining the language as rooted in some other dialectic family, but using the antique Britannic script. Noting some vague grammatical analogues I even toyed with a translation presuming a Pnakotic origin.

To my horror, this last seemed to fit.

"Professor..." I began, but he was forcing the bar between the frame and the door, face flushed in the grip of some mad frenzy. I tried to hold him, but he whirled about and struck me with the bar, knocking me to the ground and badly bruising - perhaps even breaking - my arm.

He went back to his work, and as the door cracked open I looked away, my eyes falling once more on my final translation:

'Hastur, the King Who was, Is and Will Be'.


End file.
